Linkara
Linkara is the pseudonym for Lewis Lovhaug, comic book reviewer and author. The name comes from a series of self-published books that he wrote at ages 14-19 (and subsequently plans to revisit since he wants to revise them to fix plot problems, characterizations, and various other mistakes he made because he was young and inexperienced). Usually appearing seated on a sofa, wearing a hat and brown coat, he will also sometimes brandish a flintlock pistol (which is fake). The first proper appearence of the pistol was when Linkara introduced himself to the site. After giving a brief tour of his house, which consisted of saying what he was sitting on, Linkara brought out the pistol and ordered the viewer to get out before he shot them. The pistol has made a number of appearences, most recently it was used as a suicide prop, which Linkara set on standby should the comic he was reviewing prove to much for him. Atop the Fourth Wall - Text Recaps When Lewis saw the hilarious efforts of sites like Jabootu and The Agony Booth to review and recap horrible movies and TV shows, he took it upon himself to do the same with comic books, seeing it as an untapped market. Like the two sites, he also included the occasional bizarre panel of the comic that he'd place a humorous caption under. He did seventeen text recaps without any other posts on his blog, Atop the Fourth Wall, before he threw in the towel on them. He had decided that the text recaps took far too long to write out and make funny, going from once a week to once a month to once in a blue moon. As such, he turned the Blog into one that discussed comics and his opinions on them, hoping to do more text recaps in the future. That Guy with the Glasses Contest After discovering ThatGuyWiththeGlasses.com, he became a fan of the site's various videos. When That Guy with the Glasses announced his contest to do videos, Lewis decided to make a video and enter. After enjoying the experience of filming it all and making jokes, he then realized he could do the same thing with his reviews of bad comics. As a special Halloween treat, Lewis did a three-part comic review and recap, the first he had done in quite a while. The first two parts were text recaps of Web of Spider-Man #122 and Amazing Spider-Man #399, covering a small part of what is known in comics as "The Spider-Man Clone Saga." The third recap, of Spider-Man #56, covered the final part of the storyline but was done as a video review. Because of how much fun he had with the concept, Lewis was inspired to do more video recaps. A Feature on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com After several videos were completed and posted, Lewis sent an e-mail to Mike Michaud asking if the site would be interested in hosting the show, since there was a talent hunt going on at the time. After some discussion, the show was given a trial run of a few episodes, the first two being Lewis' Top 15 WTF Moments in Bad Comics and then his review of the comic book US-1 #1. Because of the overwhelmingly positive response to the videos, Atop the Fourth Wall, and subsequently Linkara, became a part of the site's team. "This Comic Sucks." The traditional format of the show is as follows: Lewis does an introduction that varies in length and usually is without many jokes, then goes on to describe the cover of the book and the story as it goes along, making jokes at the expense of the material. Panels of the comic will move across the screen (in what is described as "The Ken Burns effect") as Lewis narrates and performs voices for characters. Sometimes he'll drift into explanations of some of the situations behind the story, trying to educate the audience on comic books while also further explaining why the comic itself is so awful. The show ends with Lewis saying, "This comic sucks" (or variations thereof), explaining why it sucks, and then ending on a joke before he angrily throws the comic onto his futon and walks away in disgust. External Links Linkara at TGWTG Linkara's Blogspot "Atop The Fourth Wall"